plant the seeds (regrow the future)
by mutemelodyx
Summary: "His feet involuntarily take him to a home that does not yet truly exist. But when he touches down on the street, he realizes that the future might be closer than he initially anticipated." / Or, Kakashi and Tenzō both somehow accidentally time travel to the past separately. They mourn for what they left behind, only to then realize that what they really missed came with them.


**This was originally written as a birthday gift for a friend.**

* * *

Kakashi wakes up all at once and instantly knows that something is very, very wrong.

It's not the lack of Kage-level seals around him that usually emit a minuscule but constant hum of chakra or the way both his physical reach and his chakra levels have notably shrunk. He _does _notice those things, of course, but they come after his initial observation.

His bed is cold.

Kakashi has never been sure exactly how to measure his relationship with Tenzō. Almost every other relationship in his life has always been clearly defined, but not with the younger man. His connection to the ex-ROOT Mokuton user was complicated, and when Kakashi's own social ineptness is added it only increases in complexity.

Even after marrying the man, he's still on uneven ground, because the concept of _marriage _was always too domestic and peaceful to be anything but foreign to him, and then he _had one._

Kakashi _does _know, however, that Mokuton makes Tenzō emit heat like a furnace when he sinks into a deep sleep. He hasn't woken up to a cold bed since before the Fourth Great Ninja War, excluding some missions.

He has a kunai in hand with only minimal movement and is already reaching out with his chakra to try and sense any enemies around him. Something _has _to be wrong - Kakashi _always _wakes up if Tenzō does, even when he was half-dead with chakra exhaustion.

He doesn't sense anyone, but that means little - even when he had the sharingan, he wasn't much of a sensor.

He keeps his body completely relaxed and his breathing steady. He stays like that, one hand loosely holding onto the kunai under his pillow and gathering his chakra to pulse it in case he needs to signal ANBU.

He hopes he doesn't; Sakura would get wind of it somehow, and he doesn't want her and Naruto mother-henning him for the next week or so.

He doesn't hear anyone. Not even the faint rustling of clothes or light breathing.

He can't sense Tenzō's chakra either. He can't even smell his scent.

With a single quick, fluid motion, he tightens his grip on the kunai and rolls out of bed, landing in a low crouch with his eyes scanning the room.

He succeeds in the motion, but it's not as graceful as it should have been. He fumbles slightly and nearly slips.

He's small. Too small.

The apartment is wrong. It's _too small. _Perfect size for one person, perhaps, but Kakashi has not been living in terms of "one person" for quite some time.

It was also familiar. Too familiar.

"Kai," he whispers, a hand sign already formed. He can sense his chakra momentarily disrupting in response, but the scene around him stays.

He moves over to the nearest mirror and then proceeds to attempt to release the genjutsu once more.

His new apartment does not appear around him. His reach does not increase back to normal. The scar over his left eye does not reappear to remind him of two wars won and friends twice buried.

The bed stays cold because it will always be cold without Tenzō.

He looks out the window. Konoha stands proudly outside, three leaders depicted on the mountainside's rocky surface. The valley Konoha resided in was gone, the permanent scar of a devastating attack that would have claimed hundreds of lives (including his own) had one genin boy believed a little less just _g one._

He clenches his too-small hands into two small fists. He's late, he knows, for morning practice with sensei and Ri- his old team.

_Late. _He's always late. Too late for Obito. Late to every training session with his students. Late to stop Sasuke.

And now he's late again, he mentally remarks as he casts a glance at the tantō hanging professionally on the wall.

Too late to save his father.

He doesn't have a plan in mind when he methodically gets prepared for training. He's detached in a way - his mind thinking of his body's future while his body goes through the familiar routine of his mind's past.

He shuts the door to the apartment behind him carefully but does not lock it. Everything he cares for is in a future of peacetime and PTSD and warm beds.

Safe, thankfully, but out of his reach.

He doesn't plan - he doesn't _think. _He doesn't realize he is going off to train with ghosts.

He spots a vibrant cherry tree and thinks of hair that same pink shade. He sees houses made of wood and imagines them more perfect and smooth than the hand could ever create. He sees flowers and thinks of them being cared for tenderly. He imagined them being cut and given to one from two, and the former hiding their face with too-long bangs. He imagines a boy with skin as white as the paper in his hands drawing out the scene, and a peculiar smile on his face as if he's still adapting to the expression.

He doesn't really become completely aware of this new reality he's now in until he hears a loud crash.

"Hiroko-jiji, are you okay? You just nearly had a really bad fall-"

"I'm fine, Obito-kun. Thank you."

"- so sorry about the groceries by the way. I just saw you falling and I reacted!"

Kakashi's pace had quickened without his conscious awareness, and he looks down the next street to see a dark-haired boy with vibrant orange goggles looking over an elderly man concernedly. There are groceries strewn about, looking scattered yet still salvageable.

"Ahh," Obito says sheepishly, reaching down to quickly begin to gather groceries. "I'm so so sorry, jiji. I think every- _Bakashi?!"_

He's detachedly aware that he's behaving rather oddly for his past self in one crucial area - he's _late. _He took his lateness from Obito in the wake of the boy's death (or rather, what he _thought _had been his death at the time) and with him alive his quirk does not make sense.

He focuses on the Obito in front of him, more _Obito _than the scarred and broken man he had seen last. Not to say that that had not been Obito, because it _was _and to claim anything else would be a lie.

Still, it's easy - _too _easy - to distance that man from the boy in front of him. To pretend that the Obito he had last seen was nothing more than a bad dream.

Maybe he would have done that, had he come back earlier. If the war had been yesterday rather than years ago. If he hadn't had time and healing and four adorable, bratty kids and a husband who made the bed that much warmer.

He forces out a scoff, purposely avoids eye-contact, and pushes past the Uchiha in a gentler way than young Kakashi would have. "Idiot," He says in a stiff tone before he leans over to pick up some of the scattered groceries.

He's aware, _too _aware of the spluttering Obito. The stare on his back is uncomfortable to the point that it burns worse than any katon jutsu.

Kami, he has no idea what he's doing. Obito had died twice for him and in between declared war on the world and afterward told him to be Hokage and get married and he had _listened_.

"You're going to be late," Obito finally manages to get out, and his voice is so childish and innocent that it takes Kakashi's breath away for a moment.

"If I leave you here I'll just have to wait for you." He says, looking intently at the vegetables." This is more efficient." He doesn't bother to mention that they _already _are late by probably an hour if the sun's position and his memory of practices with his own team were anything to go by.

Obito is dumbstruck if the silence that follows his words is anything to go by. He doesn't look at the boy's face, doesn't meet his gaze, because that will make this _real _and he honestly doesn't know if he wants that or not.

Eventually, all the groceries are collected and placed in their bags. The old man - Hiroko, Kakashi can recall Obito calling him - thanks them both kindly, and when Obito picks up one bag Kakashi wordlessly picks up the other. They travel in silence, with Obito looking at Kakashi suspiciously, Kakashi staring determinedly at the ground, and Hiroko watching them both amusedly.

"Thank you Obito-kun, Kakashi-kun." Hiroko smiles as they both drop off the groceries at his doorstep. "I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time."

"It's no problem," Obito says quickly, offering a thumbs-up. "The Hokage's job is to help everyone in the village!"

He thinks of his student with a loud mouth and a deep streak of stubbornness and a nindo that is to _never go back on my word, never run away from a fight _and remembers how Naruto had managed to connect with _this _Obito who had been trapped in inside of a broken man.

When Hiroko closes the door, Obito turns to him concernedly. He thinks of how past him would have insisted that they get to the training grounds, that they're already late enough, but his throat chokes on the words.

"Kakashi?" Obito asks, his voice questioning.

"Let's go," He says quietly, turning away from the door and gathering chakra to his feet. He's in no hurry to get to their destination, but he's even less willing to be alone with Obito.

But there's a hand on his shoulder, and Obito forces his face into Kakashi's line of sight. "Why are you being so weird?"

Kakashi swallows, his mouth suddenly very, very dry, and, for a few moments, he cannot think of a lie that works, because his default ones all come from the boy standing in front of him.

He eventually gathers himself enough, looks away, and says with a voice that is carefully emotionless. "Sensei said I needed to exhibit more...teamwork."

He's better now. He's not stable, but he's regained some footing. He's substituted the effect that peacetime has had on him with the ANBU training that had been ingrained in him so long ago. He's replaced some of his emotion with logic, and now things of words like _time travel _and _dimensional shifts _rather than _ghosts _and _reg rets._

_Maybe Yugao was right - the hat was making him soft._

(He pointedly ignores the second part of her statement, where she remarks that it suits him, that's he's _earned it._

If he goes down that avenue he will start to think of four bright students and cold beds and everything he's lost to come here and everything else he could gain by _staying _and he can't make the decision between the two.

Not yet, at least. Not now.)

Obito looks over him curiously for a few moments, but he won't see anything. He's young, _too _young, and Kakashi has a lifetime of fierce experience of hiding emotions on him. The only people who can read him are stuck in a future still unknown.

Instead, he looks off-balanced, as if he hadn't been expecting a truthful answer (not that he'd been given one, but of course, he doesn't know that). He scoffs halfheartedly but says no words.

Kakashi, falling easier into his new role, rolls his eyes. "Come on, dead last." The insult feels like poison on his lips, and he thinks of a boy with dark hair and revenge in his eyes and lightning on his fingers and coming so, _so _close to ending the world and succumbing to darkness before getting ripped away and forced back into the light. "We can't leave the others waiting any longer."

He directs a little chakra to his feet and takes off. A spluttering Obito follows, cursing under his breath, and Kakashi feels his heart break a little more when he thinks about what the future has in store for their team.

(It breaks even further when he thinks of a young boy with long hair and a cold mask who will not be on a team with him for many more years.)

* * *

Tenzō wakes up slowly and groggily realizes that something is very, very wrong.

His body is aching, but not in the way that comes with too much exertion, like it does after time spent training or a particularly hard mission or Kakashi suddenly grabbing him and dragging him along for whatever challenge Gai has in store for him (the latter of which has only happened once, but not because of lack of trying on Kakashi's part).

This is the pain of something more akin to poison. It's not stemming from muscles or tendons, but rather racing through his veins with his bloodstream.

He realizes with a jolt that it's all stemming from his tongue, and he is suddenly very, _very _awake.

He stumbles out of bed with too-short limbs tangled in covers that shouldn't exist. He hasn't woken up cold since before he moved in with Kakashi, before he had the man's unique presence that had the power to drive away nightmares and allow for deep slumber, which apparently for Mokuton users meant _heat._

But now...he's cold. Too cold. Strangely cold. He's also far too small, and his hair is much too long, and his tongue burns in a way far too similar to the way a certain seal would whenever a man now-dead would summon him.

He moves for the mirror he knows is two and a half steps to his left, and is met with a simple, undecorated wall.

He's suddenly incredibly aware of his surroundings, and his body becomes immobile.

The Foundation. ROOT.

_Da nzō._

He stays like that for a while, completely and utterly frozen in a mixture of horror and trauma. He _remembers _ROOT - he's never been able to forget it despite all of his attempts. Perhaps what happened to him there was not as horrific as his life before being Kinoe, but that does not mean at _all _that he would want to walk memory lane in this manner.

_"Kai," _He grounds out forcefully, putting all of his chakra control into it. His chakra disrupts, but the illusion does not.

Because that's what this is, right? An illusion? An enemy's jutsu meant to catch him off-guard?

Even as he thinks it, he knows it's not true. He's too well-trained to truly be that optimistic, but the part of him that's become accustomed to peace and allies and _Kakashi _wants to be.

He should be grateful, a small, traitorous part of his mind whispers. At least he's not farther back. At least he didn't wake up to a world confined to a glass tube where he was forced to watch the other children die around him. He's been in a good place mentally for a few years now, but he knows he would not be able to handle that.

Kami, how did this even _happen? _Where is Kakashi? Team Seven? _Anyone?_

His world is tilting and spinning, the pain of his body finally catching up to his mind and demanding attention. His legs tremble slightly, and he forces himself to move them (small, too small, the strides are too short) back towards the bed. He lets himself fall gracelessly.

He takes stock of the situation as if this is nothing more than a mission gone awry.

He's in the past. Far, if his height and hair length are anything to go by. Far enough that he hasn't met Kakashi yet, or has even been briefed on him. Kakashi probably hasn't even joined ANBU left.

He forces himself not to think of a tiny Kakashi, one with a team that is alive with no use or loyalty towards a boy created through illegal experimentation. Because if he does he has to force himself to acknowledge that that Kakashi will never be the one he knows since he simply loves him too much to go to the past and not save the boy from the tragedy his team is destined to be.

He pushes himself upright once more with a fierce determination. He grabs the ROOT mask on his way out and puts it on, but it is all done without serious conscious thought.

Tenzō doesn't plan, doesn't weigh benefits and consequences or think of punishments and rewards. He doesn't think of the wants of an old man with a cane he doesn't really need and an eye he's not supposed to have.

He doesn't think of old labs and broken glass and a past that he wants to bury with the dozens of too-small bodies that shared it with him. He doesn't think of Danzō's personal training or of how the pain on his tongue was only this bad the day after he received the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal.

He leaves the compound full of emotionless tools and dark secrets and enters the fresh, crisp night air. He instead thinks of loud students and running dogs and a future that he never wanted to let go but somehow slipped away.

_Wrong, _his mind whispers as he moves over the rooftops of the village. His eyes keep drifting to the training forest, where there are clearings where he knows he regrew the forest and trees where he knows there should be none due to a boy who does not know control and a girl with the strength of a goddess.

_Wrong, _his mind repeats. Sakura had knocked down that utility pole after Naruto forgot quite when to stop. Well, more like _Naruto _had knocked it down, after being thrown into it by one of Sakura's lighter punches.

_Wrong. _Sai had put a rather nasty dent in the side of that building after reading that showing-off one's abilities is a way to show your love for a girl. Ino had laughed herself silly.

_Wrong. _Sasuke had let the Uchiha District be torn down. The village didn't need any more ghosts, he had said. An orphanage should be standing in its place, one that Kakashi had commented would make his brother proud causing Sasuke to hide his face behind his long bangs and look away.

_Wrong. _Kakashi's face is supposed to be on that cliffside, right after where Lady Tsunade's should be. A sign of the endurance of one man and also his stubbornness, because the planner really had _not _wanted the mask to stay on.

_Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong._

His feet involuntarily take him to a home that does not yet truly exist. Its foundation is there, but the one who makes the house a home is years yet to come.

He touches down lightly on the pavement of the street and realizes that the future might be closer than he initially anticipated.

Kakashi stands there, younger than Tenzō ever knew him. There's no scar over his eye or Hokage hat on his head, but his eyes tell the story of more loss and grief and war than one could undergo in a dozen years.

Kakashi freezes and looks at him with enough recognition that Tenzō's breath catches.

"Tenzō?" The silver-haired boy whispers, his eyes looking past the cold porcelain to look at the boy underneath in a way that only one person in his life ever could.

"Kakashi," He breathes, and is so, _so _grateful that at least if he's back in a past of darkness, he at least has the man who repeatedly proved to be his light. He had dragged him out of ROOT, guided him through ANBU, let him share Team Seven. He had sat with him after every nightmare and let him take off his mask to kiss the face that the daylight never saw.

Kakashi moves first because Tenzō is too busy standing there in wonder. A heartbeat later and the gap between them disappears and Tenzō no longer feels like the ground is about to swallow him whole.

It's not perfect, of course, or ideal by any means. They are still separated by masks and loyalties and teachers with very different moral codes. There are still years to go before either of them are in a position to be together in the way they desire.

But...it's okay. They're okay.

They have each other, and even though the world around them should be lost to history - should _be _history itself, they know they can get through it together. They've been through worse.

"You know," Kakashi murmurs into his ear. "If you were mad enough that you didn't want me to sleep in the bed, the couch would have worked."

Tenzō laughs in spite of himself, the relief making him dizzy.

Yeah, he thinks to himself, taking in the warmth of Kakashi's hug like a man dying of dehydration would take in water.

They'll be okay.

* * *

**Yes hello please imagine newly-reformed and recently-killed Obito telling Kakashi to get his life together and get married during the scene where he tells him to be Hokage and then Kakashi being like "why not" and immediately asking out Tenzo right after getting the hat. Thank.**


End file.
